When branding a new restaurant or rebranding a current one, it can be difficult to know where to start. Maybe you feel just a logo is needed, or a catchy sign outside, but developing a strong and comprehensive brand can be an extremely powerful tool to connect with customers.

Why do some brands seem to last centuries while others fall out of favor almost as soon as you hear of them?

Here are 3 things that will help you build a brand with staying power as a part of its DNA.

1. Build your brand around values, not things — Many brands reach their peak too quickly. These brands associate with a singular product or service, which eventually becomes a cultural blip that falls out of favor as quickly as it arrived. As important as it may be for a company to have a focused and singular vision in order to produce a great product or service operationally—this does not mean that a brand should follow that same model.Brands that are built around values rather than things are usually the ones that have the greatest staying power; because values unlike things, are both scalable and transferable. Apple is not about computers. They are about innovation.

Brick-and-mortar locations are no longer a necessity for building billion dollar brands in the digital economy. Uber, Airbnb, and many others have conquered the problem of building a brand without offering a physical location for customers to visit. Recently, delivery-only dining service Maple is revolutionizing what it means to build a prominent food service brand—without a retail storefront.

Lean in and listen close— because I’m about to tell you a secret that few outside of the creative field know and many inside of it refuse to concede. The secret to great branding isn’t the logotype, logomark, color palette or the brand guidelines and rules—it’s the Story. This isn’t to say that good or (better yet) great design isn’t important. As a matter of fact I would argue that the Story is the very thing that makes great design possible.